Walk away.In order for the lender to obtain the necessary capital to fund that loan, it has to pass an initial environmental survey. 

If they are paid off sell them and use the funds to some how forward you into real estate.

Therefore, you have to resort to using other sources of funding.

I would note that some of them have penalties if you close them in a certain number of years - I took out one that had a $450 penalty if I closed it (or sold the property) within 3 years of the start date, even if I had a zero balance or never used the funds. 

When the time is right, you will see the deals you are looking for and have the funds available to make several successful moves.

I'm not sure if there are areas where all the seasonal people want to be and other areas that are not as desirable.

And then you have an Operations LLC - a shell LLC that is the public facing entity, doing all the interactions with tenants, contractors, leasing, hiring, management, etc. with no assets and very little funds beyond whats required for proper capitalization and operations.That's the basic idea, but things get complicated from there due to the partnership, financing, commingling, etc - which is your current situation.

However if you do not have the funds to close on the deal yourself or have transactional funding available, then you have to do what you have to do and assign the contract to an end buyer. 

I’m just getting things started and want to get into ‘buy and hold’ properties to bring in some additional cash flow.My wife and I have a decent amount of funds set aside, but I was wondering if it makes sense to open a HELOC on our primary residence and utilize some of those funds as well for a down payment.

Although I am still in the education phase, I’d like to gain an idea of how to fund my first deal by asking those who’ve surpassed this first step.